131: Food As Mother: Healing Your Relationship with Food
Women In-Depth: Conversations about the Inner Lives of WomenShow Notes
In this episode, Karly Randolph Pitman and I explore the parts of ourselves that tend to overeat in response to stress through the metaphor of "Food as Mother" and how this perspective can help us understand why we overeat and move towards changing this behavior.
Karly is the founder and facilitator at www.growinghumankindness. She helps highly sensitive people who struggle with shame, sugar, and perfectionism and who want to heal painful habits of self blame, self criticism, and over consuming.
Growing human(kind)ness arose from two things: Karly's own experience with 20 years of multiple eating disorders, chronic depression, shame, and anxiety; and from bearing witness to others' stories of challenge, growth and rebirth.
Karly lives in Austin, Texas with her husband Patrick and her family of two dogs, a very frisky cat, lots of dust bunnies, and beautiful oak trees.
Topics discussed in this episode: How food has become a refuge during the Covid-19 pandemic (3:58) Food and the Mother archetype (4:56) Food is safe, nourishing & comforting (5:16)
Food as Mother as a metaphor for our relationship with food The significance of core needs Overeating as soul preservation (9:17) Listening & connecting to the side of ourselves that is seeking solace in food (9:44) Moving away from thinking of overeating as the enemy (9:56) Tending and befriending rather than fighting (10:06) How this approach helped Karly move away from shame regarding her eating disorder (10:22) The shift in our approach to a challenging aspect of ourselves shifts our relationship to that aspect of ourself and plays a huge part in changing the behavior (11:45)
Our coping mechanisms for stress, overwhelm & trauma can be messy (12:29) Stand in contrast to the Western culture of controlling your own destiny (13:08) Can cause you to dislike your response to stress (13:31) Examples: Eating when you are stressed (13:31) Binge watching Netflix (13:36)
Understanding the base human need for connection (14:15) Dr. Anita Johnston's book "Eating by the Light of the Moon" (15:07) How the kinds of food we are eating reflect the kind of nourishment we are seeking
Recognizing the wisdom of the body's desires for a particular food (16:42) How sugar or comfort foods can make you feel heard, understood & acknowledged (17:03)
The risk that of not being heard or understood when you ask someone for support (17:47) How the act of eating is used to fill the need for empathy (18:20) How the food reflects back what we are feeling and needing (18:45) How food does not carry the same risk as someone dismissing or minimizing your feelings (19:09) Yet food does not meet the need for connection (20:03) Food becomes a safe substitute for meeting your needs (20:36)
How to transition from using food for connection to finding safe connections within ourselves and others (21:27) Very different from breaking a habit (21:46) Focus moves away from changing a behavior to nurturing safety within your being and others (22:12) Deepening connections within yourself and the wider world (22:36) Food becomes one of many ways for connection rather than the primary way (22:50)
Becoming consciously aware of the part of yourself that is overeating and your internal critic (24:11) How Karly's focus on self-compassion brings you into a loving and nourishing relationship with that part of yourself (24:47)
How connecting to the Mother archetype helped Karly (25:04) Ideas for connecting with the Mother archetype Gardening, caring for pets, relationships with loved ones (25:43)
Seeing your needs as sacred (26:16) Befriending your neediness and healing your relationship with food are intimately connected (26:38) Acknowledging our needs can be shaming (26:56) When we have shame regarding our needs, there is no way to acknowledge them directly (27:21) We can use food to fill the deficit, but we continue to feel unnourished, deprived and unprotected (27:21) Ha
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